Why I won't join the Fidel Castro grief orgy

Fidel Castro is dead. And I, for one, will not be shedding a single tear for his passing.

As a journalist, I cannot mourn the passing of a man who on the day of his death left behind a country ranked at just 171 on the Reporters Without Borders World Press Freedom Index. Cuba is ranked 171 out of 180 countries. It is dwelling at the bottom with other press freedom dumpster fires such as North Korea, Eritrea and Syria. It rates lower than Saudi Arabia, Iran, Iraq and Turkey.

Just last month, Cuba arrested journalists who were attempting to cover the Hurricane Matthew disaster. Equipment was confiscated, and in the wake of harassment in recent months, some journalists have fled the country.

Raul Castro's calls for reforms in 2010 have been meaningless. The regime has almost 100 per cent ownership of all media outlets. Access to the internet for citizens is severely limited. Only around 5 per cent of Cubans have internet at home, all internet comes via the government-owned telco Etecsa. Opposition websites are blocked. There is no real editorial independence in Cuba. Censorship and threats to journalists trying to do their job are par for the course.

We will never know for certain how many people have been murdered under Fidel Castro's regime. The Cuba Archive has documented 3,615 firing squad executions since 1959. It's not on the same scale as the deaths under Stalin, Hitler, Pol Pot or Mao but the mentality is the same - wipe out opposition and dissent through executions, a legal system without due process and labour camps.

Why would anyone who claims to chreish freedom, who is appalled by capital punishment, who believes in free and open political debate be OK with such repression, regardless of the scale?

"BUT FREE HEALTHCARE AND EDUCATION!" scream Castro's apologists.

Yeah, that's great as long as the educated, healthy people can actually fulfill their potential, travel freely, express their views freely, and enjoy access to a free press and a polling station once in a while. Have the apologists not noticed that plenty of countries have great educational and healthcare options and democracy? It should not be an either/or situation.

"BUT WHAT ABOUT THE US?!" the apologists yell.

It is precisely this non-nuanced, binary thinking that is turning the world into an idiocracy. It is possible to be angry about more than one thing. There is plenty to criticise the US over, especially in terms of foreign policy over multiple decades. But none of this will bring back the people who were on the receiving end of Castro's firing squads, or reunite families who have been separated, or bring peace to those who want to practice their faith without state repression.

People have risked their lives in dangerous sea voyages to escape the Castro regime. Yet it is stunning how many people who, I am certain, are quite rightly sympathetic to refugees escaping brutality, economic hardship and repression by sea in other parts of the world are seemingly unbothered by the plight of those who felt they had no choice but to leave Cuba. The hypocrisy is breathtaking.

Instead, I stand with the people who are dancing on the streets this weekend. The mere fact that I can sit here in London and criticise both the US and Cuba, and indeed Britain, without fearing for my life speaks volumes. Make mine a Cuba libre.



Photography by Kevin Burkett/Flickr

The simple conclusion from Brexit and Trump

As anyone who either didn't vote for Britain to leave the European Union, or didn't vote for President-Elect Donald Trump, or was not a fan of either one or both these notions tries to process what has happened in 2016, there is one very simple conclusion.

A lot of us are more conservative than we think, and people in general are, quite simply pretty damn conservative. These results are largely about inherent conservatism.

Of course, this should have become obvious during last year's poll-defying general election in Britain. The predicted knife-edge result in a David Cameron versus Ed Milliband contest turned into a pretty comfortable win for Cameron's Conservatives. The phenomenon of secret Tories was born, the people who could really only express their true beliefs in the privacy of the polling booth.

And then it happened again when Brexit triumphed. Secret Brexiters were also in our midst, people who again dared not mention their intention to put their cross in the "leave" box or even to tell this to a pollster, but did so when nobody was looking.

And then, just as Trump promised when he said his victory would be "Brexit plus plus plus", the polls turned out to be utter bunkum, and typing the words "President-Elect Donald Trump" still feels weird to many a journalist's fingers, my own included.

Of course, "conservative" is a broad term. There are social conservatives, fiscal conservatives, some people fit into both categories, others are one or the other. But, if we are going to be honest, there is an element of conservatism in a lot of us. 

It takes many forms. Some of them you may recognise in yourself, some you may not. This is the part of us that claims to be a feminist yet fervently checks the Daily Mail's sidebar of shame to mock a famous woman who has had the temerity to put on weight or wear an unflattering dress. This is the person who claims to be socially liberal but still makes fun of the guests on Jeremy Kyle. This is the old school, hard left trade union type who is also a fervent anti-abortionist. This is anyone who likes the security of a monogamous marriage. This is the eyeroll when one sees how much tax comes out of their salary and mutters to oneself that they hope everyone on benefits appreciates their hard-earned. This is the reason why TV programmes such as Benefits Street and Geordie Shore keep getting made. It is the maintaining of a sexist, racist, classist double standard that allows Trump, with his five children to three wives to run for president, but such a marital track record would have denied Barack Obama or Hillary Clinton the same opportunity. It is the part of us that thanks the troops for their service, gets their kids christened despite being agnostic at best, and judges people's sex lives.

And it is this inherent conservatism that leads people to say things like: "Give Trump/Brexit a chance. It might be OK, after all." and "We need to accept the result and move on." Even if they didn't vote for the winning outcome. But for everyone who tells the world to take a chill pill, to calm down, that everything will be fine, there are people fearful in the wake of both the EU referendum and the ascension of Donald Trump. The inherent conservatism that leads to glib calls for calm is almost always based in privilege, from the people who genuinely don't think the referendum or election result will adversely affect them in any way at all.

While there are certainly people from the black, Asian, Hispanic, LGBT and Muslim communities - oh, and women - who voted for Donald Trump, there are plenty of people from these communities who are fearful as to what the future holds. Based on Trump's awful rhetoric, these are not irrational fears. If any of these fears come true, such as mass deportations, travel bans for an entire religion despite it being made up of 72 sects, a rollback of reproductive rights, a daft wall, more inter-racial violence, a society where it is even harder to be take seriously as a sexual assault victim, and so on and so forth, will those who voted for Trump take responsibility? Equally, will everyone who voted Brexit take responsibility if everything truly does turn to shit after the hounds of Article 50 are released?

After all, personal responsibility is a popular principle among conservatives. Will the conservatives who voted for Trump or Brexit take responsibility if their desired utopia does not materialise? 

And it all makes a mockery of left versus right. The lines between the left and the right are now blurred but the inherent conservatism is still there.

The Trump vote was not, as much as Jeremy Corbyn would like to think so, a massive anti-globalist, anti-establishment wake-up call. Donald Trump, in sending jobs to China (and now his daughter, Ivanka, the only woman on his transition team, in sending jobs from China to the even cheaper workforces of Ethiopia) has benefited enormously from globalisation. Plenty of people, stereotypical establishment types, figured they'd do well under Trump and voted accordingly. Conversely, there was certainly an element of anti-globalisation feeling among many a Brexiter, from the hard left to the protectionist right as well. Meanwhile, Nigel Farage, Donald Trump and Jeremy Corbyn are all apologists for Putin's Russia, even though it is a profoundly undemocratic, anti-freedom regime. 

Disturbingly - and elements of the left and right are equally appalling here - there are calls for censorship of journalists and of all manner of media outlets, as well as stifling of peaceful protests. Like the post-Brexit slanging matches, there are gloating Trump voters taking the "we won, get over it" line, as if democracy begins and ends at the ballot box. These people don't want to be challenged by protesters or by the media. And there are plenty on the left these days who are also mad about censorship and won't rest until the BBC morphs into Pravda, Laura Kuenssberg is replaced by Naomi Klein, and the Morning Star is the only newspaper available.

And when you look at who voted for Trump, and realise that there are plenty of educated, wealthy people among them, and when you realise that large swathes of England and Wales voted to leave the EU, even in areas that have benefited enormously from EU membership, it is clear that generalisations about every person who voted in these directions are grossly unhelpful if there is to be constructive dialogue about any of these issues any time soon. 

But there is certainly an undercurrent of inherent conservatism out there and it tells me that a populist leftist movement won't necessarily win out on either side of the pond. 

Elections are won on the centre ground - or the perceived centre ground - in the UK. Right now, the Tories have convinced broad swathes of the electorate that they hold the middle ground. Hell, there are still people who think the NHS is perfectly safe under this government, despite another £700m of our money going to Virgin Care in Somerset while remaining free from the accountability of freedom of information requirements. Indeed, the NHS is a solid example of inherent conservatism again rearing its head. There is no shortage of people who claim to support the NHS but still blame immigrants if they cannot get a GP appointment, have no issue with unchecked outsourcing of health services to the private sector "as long as it remains free at the point of use" and would not bat an eyelid if services such as IVF, transgender healthcare, abortion and birth control, were not covered by the NHS. 

Meanwhile, it's not quite apples and oranges when you compare it all with the US - there would be a political home in America for many a British Conservative MP in the Democrats, for example. David Cameron, Anna Soubry and Justine Greening, for example, would not look out of place as US Democrats, and it is actually not too hard to imagine Hillary Clinton sitting on the green leather benches of Theresa May's Conservative government. On top of all this, I am unconvinced that an ageing, Jewish-often-perceived-as-atheist, self-proclaimed socialist, such as Bernie Sanders would win over enough of America to lead a government. 

None of this points to either Britain or the US crying out for a hard left alternative, as disappointing as many will find that conclusion. While there are certainly differences between British and American societies, both nations are, at heart, conservative. And this is what the opponents of Brexit and Donald Trump need to address if they are to make a real impact.


Picture by Chris/Flickr

Censorship, students and unfashionable opinions

Congratulations, Cardiff University Women's Society, on your tremendous victory. Germaine Greer has decided not to speak at your campus on the topic of "Women and Power in the 20th Century". She has decided that, at the age of 76, she cannot be arsed with the inevitable hassle. She cannot be blamed for feeling as if her safety won't be guaranteed, that people won't throw things at her.

Well done, Cardiff University Women's Society, for successfully silencing a woman, for making her fear for her personal safety. I hope you are proud of yourselves.

I get it. You are upset with Germaine Greer's views on trans women. Her views on trans women are not ones that I share - indeed, I do not agree with her on everything and I doubt she would expect me to do so - but to react to her unfashionable views by silencing her or making her fear for her safety is ridiculous. Trans women face issues of personal safety that are unimaginable to many of us. Mental health issues are a major problem, suicide rates are unacceptable, bullying and harassment and violence are sadly commonplace, and the voices and experiences of trans women are often silenced and shut out.

But silencing one woman will not make things better for anyone.

This current craze for no-platforming is the kind of intellectually mild censorship that should have no place on a university campus, a place where your ideas are supposed to be challenged, where there should be no one dominant viewpoint, and a place where debates should take place between people of differing opinions.

As one of the leading figures in feminism of the 20th Century, I'd be very interested in what she has to say on the topic of "Women and Power in the 20th Century". Her perspectives, as someone who was part of the story as well as a commentator on the story, would have, most likely, been fascinating.

But now nobody at Cardiff University will get to hear her perspectives on this important period of feminist history.

It is a period of history that still has implications to this day - there are still debates going on around the world about the issues that angered women last century and people like Germaine Greer helped bring women's issues into the mainstream. It is because of Germaine Greer and her contemporaries that people started to realise that women's issues are not minority issues.

You may not agree with her views on trans women but it is hard to argue that she did not pave the way for women - and the views of women who disagree with her - to be heard. Have you even bothered to read The Female Eunuch and to understand it in its historic context so you can appreciate why Germaine Greer is important in 2015? Are you so arrogant, so fixated on one of her opinions, that you cannot appreciate the importance in learning from history and from someone who was part of that history?

Trans issues did not play a massive role in the 20th Century women's movement. Indeed, mainstream second wave feminism has been frequently criticised for being too middle class, too white, too heterosexual, and certainly trans-exclusionary. But here are a few constructive ideas for the members of Cardiff University Women's Society - why didn't it occur to you to attend Greer's lecture and ask her challenging questions about where trans women were during the changes that took place in the 20th Century? Or you could peacefully picket the lecture (while we still have the right to peacefully protest in this country...), or hold your own event with powerful trans women as speakers. Or just don't attend the lecture and get on with your life. "Freedom of speech" is not the same as "compulsory to listen".

Imagine if you attended the lecture and started a constructive conversation with Germaine Greer about trans issues. Universities can be amazing places where students achieve amazing things - science students have made breakthroughs that astounded their professors, humanities students have come up with world-changing philosophies, and Cardiff University students could have played a pivotal role in opening up dialogue on trans issues between the generations. But that won't happen now because the intellectually lazy route of censorship was the more comfortable ride.



Photo by Circe Denyer

Why the Ashley Madison hacking matters

"These lying cheats look like they'll get some of their own medicine now." (Daily Telegraph reader)

"I didn't used [sic] to believe in karma, but this, honestly is making me question my doubts. This totally made my Monday. I hope they totally out everyone on that site. ;)" (Huffington Post reader)

"I think the hackers should publish the whole damn lot, regardless of whether the site is taken down." (Guardian reader)

And so on... It was inevitable that the hack on Ashley Madison, a website aimed at people who want to discreetly cheat on their partners, was not going to generate much sympathy for the victims. But the pearl-clutching outrage and sanctimonious gloating over the unfaithful masks the bigger problem here.

Melanie McDonagh, Moral Guardian in Chief for the Evening Standard drearily, predictably wrote yesterday that she would be "even more inclined to cackle if the Impact Team was a group of evangelical Christians anxious to put people out of the way of temptation."

Sadly for St Melanie of the Marital Bed, the real story was not a moral crusade with the potential to destroy millions of lives and provide a bonanza for divorce lawyers. Instead, it seems the Impact Team hacked Ashley Madison as disgruntled customers - they were outraged that the company would only permanently delete details of membership from its servers for a £15 fee. Given the nature of the site and the desperation of people not to be found out if they decided Ashley Madison's human smorgasbord was not to their taste, this would be an easy money-spinner. Welcome to free market capitalism, cheaters!

But it is the fact that such a devastating hack can happen on websites that claim to have the very best security that is the real worry for everyone. How many websites have your personal details? How would you feel if someone wasn't happy with waiting all day for an Argos delivery, hacked into their database and threatened to release the information? Obviously, being outed as an Argos customer is marginally less embarrassing than being outed as an Ashley Madison customer, but the breach of privacy is still completely unacceptable.

What if the government decided that a website you'd signed up to was not to their liking and they wanted to find out the details of everyone involved? David Cameron's speech this week about dealing with radical Islam is a case in point. Maybe you signed up to a website for some information about Islam for any number of reasons, none of which involved terrorism. But this is a government that is becoming less and less libertarian about your online privacy - do you trust this government to not obtain personal information from sites they deem to be "of interest"?

How relaxed and comfortable would you feel if you discovered you ended up on a watch list for no good reason? Maybe you'll get stopped from boarding that flight to Turkey, even though you were simply hoping for a Kate Moss-style rampage on a beach in Bodrum and weren't using the trip to enter Syria and join IS.

But, hey, it is far easier to moralise about the lives of people you don't know. Never mind that with 70% of Ashley Madison members being men, the chances of feckless husbands actually getting laid via that site are not brilliant. Never mind that it's the kind of site that plenty of people probably join for a bit of a nosy around before logging off and never logging back on again. Never mind that there might be people on that site desperate for some attention because they are in an abusive relationship or a relationship they don't feel they can leave for any number of reasons.

No, let's just get the pitchforks out instead and affect an attitude that leads to execution in Saudi Arabia! Yeah! Well played, people!

Nobody is denying that infidelity can destroy relationships and that it usually ends up being deeply unpleasant for all concerned. But if all you're getting out of the Ashley Madison story is an excuse to get on your high horse about other people's sex lives, you're not paying attention.





Photography by Circe Denyer. Picture posed by models in no way connected to this blog post.

Why I'm still a feminist: Part 2

Following on from yesterday's International Women's Day blog post, in which I looked over assorted feminist rants I wrote in 2012 to see how far we've come (Hint: Not far enough in many cases...), I am now casting my beady eye over 2013's blog posts. My International Women's Day reflection for 2013 seems to ring true today, sadly.

"My feminism is better than your feminism" reflected on how women harm each other by turning feminism into a competition. Sometimes some of us will have to agree to disagree on certain issues. This does not mean healthy discussion should be shut down. It does mean that more will be achieved when there is mutual respect.

January 2013 was also about pap smears and cervical cancer - this is an issue very close to my heart, among other parts, as early detection of pre-cancerous cells back in 1997 probably saved my life. This is where Australia is leading the way - pap smears are advised 18 months after you first have sex or once you turn 18, whatever comes first. But the UK lags behind with early detection and, as a result, women under 25 are dying unnecessarily. More still needs to be done here, I am sorry to report.

I joined in the feminist fun of writing the terrible Nadine Dorries a letter from my uterus. I am quite sure she never read it but the good news is that she seems to have piped down, at least on the issue of reproductive rights. She has, however, made a fool of herself in many other ways since then.

Welfare reform and sexism intersected with my piece on the "woman with a womb like a clown car", representing as she does a tiny minority of benefits claimants. It remains to be seen with the General Election looming in May as to whether whatever damn government we end up with examines the benefits system with the right mix of commonsense and compassion.

And I probably alienated myself from some women with my dismissing of Seth McFarlane's "I saw your boobs!" song at the 2013 Oscars as a fauxrage. There is now at least one fauxrage a week as people become more and more determined to find things by which they can be offended and have less and less consideration for what true freedom of speech really means.

Additonally, I mocked Cosmopolitan magazine because its sex tips remain stupid. It is trying very hard at the moment to be the "acceptable" face of feminism. Sometimes it makes good points, sometimes I roll my eyes hard.

There were plenty of stupid things said about rape in 2012 and this has not really changed. As such, we had the unedifying spectacle of Ashley Judd being shot down in flames for daring to discuss rape. This led to idiots quoting her out of context and any intelligent discussion on rape fell by the wayside. I attempted commonsense on the thorny issue of false rape accusations but I am not sure anyone noticed.

April was a weird old month in the feminist rant department. I wasn't exactly tackling the big issues with a piece on marketing chocolate Special K to women (although I remain so tired of food being referred to as "naughty" or "wicked"...) and another piece on why shoe shopping sucks. But then Margaret Thatcher died and while the people who commented on my reflections on Thatcher as a feminist icon, I am quite sure many disagree with me wholeheartedly. Her legacy remains a topic of debate and I expect this to continue for decades.

And then there was another piece on lads' mags and Page 3 which resulted in some interesting comments indeed. I encountered a tiresome woman who used her "I'm a mother, you're not!" reasoning to try and shut down debate on censorship of lads' mags. That is a surefire way to quell any hope of intelligent discussion and it happens all the time. Nuts magazine announced more modest covers, possibly in the wake of the Lose The Lads' Mags campaign but I doubt campaigners will rest until these magazines are eliminated.

A century after Emily Davidson's untimely death elevated her to suffragette martyr status, I shared a few thoughts on things that would probably appall her in 2013. And looking over the points I made, not much has improved for women's voices in Parliamant. There is still tedious Daily Mail slut-shaming, and G4S still getting government contracts despite being inept and unscrupulous.

Nigella Lawson's personal life hit the headlines in 2013 after awful pictures of her now ex-husband throttling her at a London restaurant were published. She seems to have happily moved on. If only the same could be said for everyone who has suffered at the hands of an abusive partner. Domestic violence remains a problem.

I took a look at Australia, my country of birth after Julia Gillard stopped being the Prime Minister. I maintain that a lot of the vitriol directed at her was sexism pure and simple.

2013 also marked the year I could have been released from a UAE prison had I not acted my way out of a farcical adultery trial. It was a shocking and sad story but I do mot regret living in the UAE nor do I think it's the worst place on the planet for women. Indeed, a later rant on the niqab showed that my time in the Middle East led me to views on Islamic dress that may not be popular in certain circles. When it comes to how much flesh a woman should show, she simply cannot win.

Despite being a long-term Cosmo and Grazia magazine snarker, I defended writing about beauty because, basically, lipstick is not the enemy. Hell, some days I wear it myself. More seriously, there was a censorship row at Sydney University over a magazine cover featuring a range of vulvas. It would appear this is just one of many incidents in universities around the world where free speech is being stifled. This has become an alarming trend in recent years and it has to stop. Universities will no longer be bastions of free speech and thought if the rot is not stopped.

Sex workers' rights is always a tricky one. But I don't think anyone can deny that the current laws help anyone, especially women, whether they are brilliantly unrepentant sex workers by choice or whether they are true victims. In any case, a moral panic over women selling sex is never helpful.

And as the sun set on 2013's blogging, I reflected on the role of first ladies. Again, they can't win. It doesn't matter what political stripe they belong to, or what causes they choose to champion, they will be slagged off by someone. It is an awful job and I do wonder how much relief is felt by first ladies when their husbands are no longer in office. Whatever the case, it'd be good to see more bright women leading countries - not that this will be the outcome of the 2013 British General Election...

Photo by Vera Kratochvil

Charlie Hebdo, part trois... The Plimsoll line returns. And has the bear been poked?

Back in September 2013, long before most of the world had heard of Charlie Hebdo, I blogged about the Plimsoll line of modesty. I was ranting, as I sometimes to, on how frequently women can't win, no matter what they choose to do/say/wear etc.

Get your boobs out on Page 3 and risk being called a slag and a traitor to other women, wear something Islamic and you'll be told you're oppressed as if you are a stupid child, wear a short skirt and you might be asking to be raped, dress a little dowdily and you run the risk of some concern troll offering you a makeover, and whether your shoes are high or low, you may have to defend your choice to wear them and declare them as "empowering" even if you're just wearing them to keep your feet dry.

It is as if there is an imaginary Plimsoll line for hem lengths and square inches of flesh exposed before a woman crosses from slapper to sheepish. And now it would seem there is a Plimsoll line for offence as well.

The question has been asked over and over again since the Charlie Hebdo massacre: Did the magazine poke the bear?

And this is where there has been a global exercise in missing the point and, ultimately blaming murder victims for their own demise from everybody including the Pope. That said, the Pope is perfectly entitled to express his views and anyone who uses words rather than bullets for dissent is doing it right.

So the big question is: At what point is something fair comment, accurate reportage or "acceptable" satire and at what point does it become offensive? There is no one point for all people for this to happen. It depends on the individual. There is no Plimsoll line for offensiveness. This is not a question with a solitary right or wrong answer.

Plenty of people, and not just IS-loving extremist terrorists, found plenty of Charlie Hebdo's cartoons for different reasons - but the people who are not extremist lunatics have used their freedom of speech to call out Charlie Hebdo, as is their right to do so. They have not shot people dead as the extremist lunatics have done. It is a tragedy that the dead magazine staffers are no longer around to engage in any sort of meaningful conversations about their work and answer their critics.

As I said, there is no Plimsoll line for offensiveness. Monty Python's The Life Of Brian, for example, offended countless Christians when it was released in 1979 but there were plenty of Christians who found it hilarious. Likewise, who is to know where the line should be drawn with material that may offend Muslims? Again, it depends on the Muslim. Plenty of Muslims are offended by Charlie Hebdo but defend the magazine's right to free speech. And other Muslims may disagree with this entirely. Nobody speaks for all the world's Muslims any more than anyone spoke for all the world's Christians in 1979.

But the Monty Python team were not assassinated for making The Life Of Brian, just as nobody has been killed over The Book Of Mormon. Indeed, the Mormons have used the show as a PR tool which is rather brilliant.

So does all satire about Muslims need to be tempered in case more maniacs decide to gun down journalists, cartoonists and editors? This is the question that shows a lack of understanding about terrorism. Terrorism is effective because of the horrific element of surprise. Even after 9/11 and 7/7 and the Madrid bombing, we are still shocked when something like this happens, we remember where we were when we heard the news, we panic when it happens close to home or close to our loved ones.

Charlie Hebdo could, I suppose tone down the satire. But that would not necessarily save any more lives. And what is stopping another publication from being the next target? The Daily Mail, for example, sometimes renders satire redundant. It, like the Daily Express, is also a newspaper that does not exactly give Islam an easy ride. So, should these newspapers stop publishing stories on, say, the Rotherham sex abuse scandal just in case some maniac turns up at their offices and shoots everyone? Or how about Jezebel, a US website that often publishes stories about the latest insane thing Saudi Arabia has done to women? Plenty of Muslims find Saudi to be a ridiculous regime. Others may think banning women from driving and making sure male guardians give women permission for everything from working to travelling is perfectly reasonable. So should Jezebel quit calling out Saudi's sexist bullshit?

If any of these outlets became the target of a terrorist, we'd still be shocked. And then fearful. And then we start censoring, editors start second-guessing themselves, people start cancelling travel plans or changing their daily routine. And that is how terrorists win.

See? Where does it end? Does every news outlet in the world have to keep self-censoring and neutering stories and tempering opinion pieces until all it is left with is bland, inoffensive material that is of no use to anyone?

Charlie Hebdo may have poked the bear but everyone has their own bear and the level of poking it can withstand can vary wildly.

Interestingly, the outrage over the Charlie Hebdo cartoon depicting the victims of Boko Haram's kidnapping and sexual enslavement as pregnant welfare queens was, I thought, ridiculous. I was so relieved when someone else interpreted it the same way I did - not as a sexist dig at the victims but a poke in our collective consciences over our attitudes in EU countries to Muslims on benefits. There is always outrage at asylum seekers on benefits and immigrants on benefits - and if they happen to be Muslim, that seems to kick the outrage meter up a few more notches. But there is still outrage, sometimes from the same people, at the kidnappings and forced marriages. To me, it posed the question of what we'd do if all the victims turned up on our borders, pregnant to their Boko Haram rapists, seeking asylum and state benefits. Would we all suddenly be collectively generous to these women or would attitudes remain unchanged?

I thought it was one of Charlie Hebdo's better cartoons. The cartoon depicting a black female politician as a monkey was, I thought, rather repulsive and I have no problem with saying that without reaching for a gun.

If this whole story has taught us anything, it's that satire doesn't always travel well and a lot of people have been left either baffled by French satire or simply unamused. But satire doesn't have to be universally amusing. Not everyone has to get it. And nobody should be killed over it.

You should be able to poke the bear. It is up to the bear to respond in a civilised manner.



Photography by Lilla Frerichs

We just don't know what to do with boobs...

Once again, women cannot win. I have no idea if Louise Burns was "attention-seeking" when she pointed out Claridge's bizarre attempt to make her breastfeed more "discreetly" by suggesting that a napkin wigwam should be draped over her baby. And, frankly, I really don't care.

Dressed demurely while having a meal in one of London's most expensive hotels, she was never going to be a poster girl for oppressed women of the world, but I doubt that was her aim. The napkin situation is hardly on par with FGM or a Boko Haram mass kidnapping, but just because far more horrendous things are happening to women elsewhere, that doesn't mean we can't have an intelligent conversation about breastfeeding in public or exposed breasts in general.

Except that hasn't happened, has it?

Seriously, she was not being "ostentatious" (nice one, Nigel...), there was no visible nipple, rivers of milk weren't gushing all over the table and leaving puddles on the floor. Has anyone bothered to ask whether any diners were so offended by the sight of Ms Burns unobtrusively feeding her child that it put them right off their cream tea?

Then the idiots came out in full force.

"Why can't she breastfeed in the toilets?" they ask. Er, because eating in a toilet, even a posh one at Claridges, is unhygienic.

"If she can breastfeed in public, I should be able to take a dump/urinate/masturbate in public!". No. Not even remotely comparable. Go away.

"Why can't she express milk into bottles?". Why can't people stop dictating to women what they do with their breasts?

Then there are the people who are fine with Page 3 girls but not OK with public breastfeeding. For what it's worth, I have no issue with either use of boobs because, as I've just written, WHY CAN'T PEOPLE STOP DICTATING TO OTHER WOMEN WHAT THEY DO WITH THEIR BREASTS? Offended by a nursing mother? Don't look! Offended by Page 3? Don't buy The Sun! I realise this makes me some sort of minority feminist. I don't care.

This ludicrous brouhaha came in the same week that additional idiots experienced a mass gross-out because Madonna, at the age of 56, had the temerity to get her boobs out. Then there were some who are opposed to Page 3 but found a bare-breasted Madonna to be empowering for older women. At what age do bare boobs stop being exploitative and start being empowering? Christ, this is confusing.

And let's not forget the poor, muddled people who are fine with Page 3, not fine with public breastfeeding, and also want to ban the burkha. I ranted on this a while back - the niqab and the Plimsoll line of modesty - women's modesty is something that every dickhead has an opinion on even though it's nobody's damn business. Get your boobs out and you might be a slut or a bimbo without a brain or you're a cause of sexual assault. Cover them up and you'll probably be OK, unless you cover them up in something Islamic, in which case, you are causing sharia to creep in. Get them out to breastfeed and you're an attention-seeking exhibitionist Earth mother who knits her own lentils. Get them out on a beach in Spain by all means - but only if your boobs meet a certain standard of perkiness. We've all seen how the media treats a woman if her "bikini body" is not up to scratch. If you didn't attain the perfect bikini body before your holiday, obviously you must not go topless, you grotesque cow. But don't cover those chest puppies up too much... It's a fine line between a muu-muu and an abaya.

And there was the inevitable disappointment of a woman coming out in full support of the pearl-clutchers, such as Melissa Kite writing a dizzying spew of overreaching bile for The Spectator about the "frenzied glorification of motherhood". That headline was posted, apparently without irony, above the pictures of Ms Burns looking about as far from a frenzy as choir practice, but nothing could stop Ms Kite's irrational barrage of hate. Still, we've come to expect this sort of woman-slagging-off-another-woman nonsense on a regular basis. Behold Sarah Vine's awful riff about Jack Monroe's sex life in the Daily Mail. She could have disagreed with Monroe's politics without coming across as a nasty homophobic prude, but that would not satisfy the awful appetite out there for pieces where women say horrible things about other women and, thus, the death knell of feminism can be sounded yet again.

So, in this catfight context, it was inevitable that another woman was going to come out and put Ms Burns, the scandalous breastfeeder, in her place.

Every time there is a breastfeeding debate, someone always points out that the disproportionate outrage turns women off breastfeeding. Quite. Condemning nursing mothers as exhibitionist hippies who just feed their kids the way nature intended because they are brazen attention-seekers is ridiculous and unconstructive. Equally, shaming mothers who bottle-feed as abusive or lazy is just as pathetic.

Finally, on a dark and tragic note, the Claridges saga coincided with the death of Charlotte Bevan and her four-day-old daughter Zaani. They were found dead on a cliff face at Avon Gorge, two miles from St Michael's maternity unit, where Zaani was born. The noise surrounding Claridges has driven this story out of the news cycle. While this is most likely a blessing for Charlotte Bevan's grieving family, the outcomes of the hospital inquiry into these deaths will be worth attention. A line of inquiry relates to Charlotte Bevan stopping her anti-depressant medication so she could breastfeed as a possible contributing factor. It is possible that a troubled woman has paid the ultimate price for her desire to choose breastfeeding.

As such, if you're making a mindless racket about women who choose to breastfeed in public or do anything with their breasts of their own free will, you might want to take a long, hard look at yourself and work out why these women make you so angry. The problem is with you, not the owners of the breasts.    


Photography by Petr Kratochvil

No urolagnia please. We're British.

Here's a fun drinking game to play on a lonely night. Knock back a shot of the poison of your choice if any of the following have ever featured in your consensual sex life:

1. Spanking
2. Caning
3. Aggressive whipping
4. Penetration by any object "associated with violence"
5. Physical or verbal abuse (regardless of if consensual)
6. Urolagnia (known as "water sports")
7. Role-playing as non-adults
8. Physical restraint
9. Humiliation
10. Female ejaculation
11. Strangulation
12. Facesitting
13. Fisting

How are you feeling now? Sober as judge? A little tipsy? Under the table? Whatever your score out of 13, it really is none of anyone's business. And, equally, if you are a consenting adult who enjoys watching any of these acts in pornography, that is also nobody's business but your own. If you are a consenting adult who wishes to be involved in the making of such pornography, either in front of the camera or behind the scenes, again, that is your business.

Except the government has made it their business. The above list is from the Audiovisual Media Services Regulations 2014 that requires video-on-demand online porn to meet the same British Board of Film Censors (BBFC) guidelines for DVD porn. These 13 things are now banned from being depicted in anything made by British pornography producers.

If you care about freedom of speech and expression and an internet that doesn't treat adults like children and you value that novel concept of parental responsibility instead of banning all the things, you should be concerned. Even if your idea of sexy viewing is a flash of wrist as a glove is unbuttoned in a Merchant Ivory film, you should be concerned if you consider yourself an anti-censorship champion.

Because this sort of nonsense starts with porn. It's the government dipping its prudish toe in the waters of moral panic to see what it can ban without causing too much of a ruckus. After all, how many people will seriously bring traffic to a halt by marching on Parliament brandishing banners about the right to make and watch golden shower porn? The government is not expecting a fist-in at Trafalgar Square or civic disobedience by flooding the streets of London with female ejaculate.

So once the porn ban passes without incident, the gates are open for other things to be banned - things you might like, things you might find interesting, sources of information. And while this is going on, the government might just take a peek at your online activity too. It might be as blatant as the snoopers' charter "emergency data" law that is supported by all major parties. Or it could be that tinkering-around-the-edges attempts at silencing people, such as the cosy yet odious Twitter chat between Tory MP Sarah Wollaston and Tory MEP Daniel Hannan in which they sneer patronisingly at the #CameronMustGo hashtag that has been trending on Twitter in the UK for more than a week now. Of course people who use the #CameronMustGo hashtag know it will be decided at the ballot box next May but Twitter is a way for those who feel voiceless to be heard. Or The Sun doing the dirty work for the government by making the New Era Estate story all about Russell Brand's rent rather than working people being evicted from affordable housing. Yeah, The Sun, that newspaper that champions ordinary hardworking Brits...

Censorship takes many forms and this porn rule is only the start.

And the porn ban, as well as being the start of further curbs on freedoms for adults, is, like most poorly thought-out, knee-jerking, pearl-clutching regulations completely stupid, ineffective and could do more harm than good.

First, it only applies to porn made in Britain so as long as people have the internet, they can probably access anything on the list from other parts of the world. So then the government has to go on an insane website-blocking rampage because they're thinking of the children. Instead of parents taking responsibility for their children. And this is the sort of activity that is impossible to maintain.

And then there is the list itself. Depictions of spanking, whipping, caning and facesitting are frequently the preserve of the dominatrix, the woman in a position of sexual power. Is the government scared of this? And what exactly is an object "associated with violence"? For a rape victim, that object might well be a penis but if penile penetration is removed from porn, that is going to be somewhat limiting. The stuff about abuse, strangulation and role-playing as non-adults shows an ignorance of fantasy versus reality. And the "physical restraint" could be fluffy pink handcuffs or a delicate tethering to the bed with silk scarves. Is that now off limits for delicate British eyes? Bans on water sports depictions are just goofy and the female ejaculation ban is ridiculous. If anything, seeing this depicted in pornography may well be reassuring for the woman who thought she'd wet the bed at the moment of orgasm.

The ban will just drive much of the porn industry further underground and create a black market. Hey presto, we end up with a greater risk of people performing in porn against their will, underage people getting involved, trafficked people and so on. None of this is OK. But it could be an unintended consequence of moronic rules that treat consenting adults like idiot children.

To paraphrase a well-worn saying, first they came for the pornographers but I preferred Downton Abbey...

Who's up for that Trafalgar Square fist-in then?

Brooks Newmark and the paisley penis panic

I can't lie. The breaking news about Conservative MP Brooks Newmark sending a rather revealing photo of himself to an undercover reporter posing as a lust-struck woman made me laugh. The story was ripe for insta-parody on Twitter - his name sounds like either a recruitment agency ("I always hire my accountants through Brooks Newmark...") or a posh menswear shop ("I decided to push the boat out and bought myself new socks from Brooks Newmark rather than Asda...), he was another Tory caught with his pants down, he was wearing paisley pyjamas. Paisley. I ask you.

As a result, Newmark has resigned from his post as Minister for Civil Society. At least he is still an MP so the taxpayer doesn't have to fund another by-election hot on the heels of Mark Reckless defecting to UKIP over the weekend. It will be up to his constituents to decide whether getting caught in a sting is a sacking offence.

Christ knows what the atmosphere is like at Newmark's house at the moment. Is his wife furious? Are the kids angry or just mortified? Frankly, this is none of our business just as Brooks Newmark sending a rude picture to someone he naively thought might fancy him is none of our business.

The outrage is a fauxrage.

What about the time Newmark said: "The important thing charities should be doing is sticking to their knitting and doing the best they can to promote their agenda, which should be about helping others." when his job encompassed responsibility for charities? That was way more outrageous than a moment of silly human frailty.

Don't even start with the "he was quoted out of context" defence. It was a smarmy, arrogant, patronising way of saying he didn't want any bothersome charities pestering him with their advocacy. Never mind that certain government policies might have led to the charities being busier than ever... Even the ones the Tories traditionally like such as Help For Heroes... Awkward.

Newmark's comments came in the midst of political wrangling over the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill - better known as the Gagging Bill - which became law in January 2014. That rotten, censoring, anti-freedom law is far more outrageous than a ministerial penis poking out of paisley pyjamas.

But what is very telling here is that Newmark got away with a pitiful attempt at a clarification after his mindless knitting comment, saying what he really meant to say was that charities "absolutely have the right to campaign" but should "stay out of the realm of party politics". So why didn't he simply say so in the first place? Also, it can be a bit hard for a charity to campaign against something a government has done without mentioning the people in government the charity deems responsible for the grievance. Anyone who doesn't think the Transparency of Lobbying, Non-party Campaigning and Trade Union Administration Bill is about censorship and silencing certain voices is kidding themselves.

So a patronising, dismissive comment about the very organisations with which he is meant to try and cooperate is fine under this government but a man has to resign for something that some may find immoral or distasteful but is certainly not illegal? This is not Saudi Arabia and for that we should be very thankful.

In the meantime, the Sunday Mirror has been under fire for running this story based on a sting after they broke the news. The whole thing does smack of a Sunday papers Tory sex scandal outrage from the 1980s. Retro. But this story exposes more than an errant wang. It exposes the true values of this government, and in particular the Conservative Party. I have no idea what the outcome would have been if an MP from any other party was caught in such a sting. Perhaps it would have been the same panic-stricken resignation rather than simply weathering the storm and moving on.

But weathering the storm and moving on would surely be the more grown-up way to deal with this pathetic excuse for a sex scandal. We do have much bigger fish to fry at the moment. In case you hadn't noticed, we're at war again.

This sorry story has exposed the Tories as the party that tries to win cheap political points with cheap jibes at charities in the name of stifled public debate. It is the party where doing something silly but legal is worse than passing a terrible law which goes against the freedoms it claims to stand for. On that count, well played to the Sunday Mirror for giving us that insight. It is now up to the people of Britain as to what they do with that information.

Get angry about jailed journalists in Egypt - but look in your own backyard too...

There is global anger at the jailing of journalists in Egypt. Three Al Jazeera journalists - an Australian, a Canadian and an Egyptian - have been sent down for seven years on absurd "terrorism" charges. Two British journalists and a Dutch journalist were tried in absentia and each sentenced to 10 years.

The whole case is completely appalling. In a world where news can break on Twitter, it is ridiculous that an Egyptian judge tries to silence journalists who are doing their job. And it is absolutely horrendous that the censorship is attempted via prison sentences.

But in the midst of the outrage, we should all stop to look at what is going on in our own backyards. On the weekend, thousands of people marched in London to protest the government's austerity measures. Regardless of your point of view on the current government's policies, a march of this magnitude is a news story. Of course, if the march descended into violence, if people were arrested, if anyone was kettled, if Boris Johnson could use it as justification for his stupid water cannons, if Nigel Farage spoke at the march, it would be guaranteed widespread media coverage. But a peaceful mass movement with numbers that have increased year on year? Tumbleweeds. It lurked on the fringes with a bit of Russell Brand-obsessed coverage in the Independent and Huffington Post. There was a wee bit in the largely unread Morning Star.

Oh, and a mere three sentences on the BBC news website for a protest that happened on their doorstep so it wasn't as if they would have even needed to pay for a reporter's cab fare. Not sure how those who keep banging on about "BBC lefty bias" will spin that one.

The Guardian did a slightly better job but, predictably, focused on Russell Brand for clickbait which led to a mea culpa piece to explain that the whole thing wasn't just about Katy Perry's ex-husband.

Yet today both the Guardian (which has confused media morals as it both covered much of the Leveson inquiry, apart from the few hours given to the portrayal of women in the media, and championed the ridiculous report) and the BBC news site have gone big with the Egyptian story today.

It is easy to wring one's hands about something happening in a foreign land far away.

Of course, the locking up of western journalists adds the much-needed proximity for media outlets in Canada, Britain, Australia and the Netherlands to ramp up the coverage. The Sydney Morning Herald has been diligently giving live updates. It's a shame Fairfax, the company that owns the SMH, has not been quite so diligent about preserving staff jobs or maintaining quality across the board. Murdoch's news.com.au is also leading with the Egypt story - that'd be the same stable of journalists that are so deeply in bed with Prime Minister Tony Abbott that they were photographed after the last election toasting his victory.

Like I said, we all need to look in our own backyards because even if our countries are not jailing journalists for doing their job, they're not necessarily being conducive to giving people the free press they deserve either. Just ask any Australian journalist who has tried to get a visa to visit the detention centre for asylum-seekers on Manus Island about jumping through ridiculous hoops.

And then there is the elephant in the room - these journalists work for Qatar-based Al Jazeera and it is pretty clear that this is politically motivated. I don't think President Sisi will be sending warm Ramadan greetings to the Emir of Qatar next month. Indeed, tensions between Al Jazeera, the Egyptian government and Al Jazeera journalists working in Egypt are not new. And while Al Jazeera is obviously and rightfully reporting this outrage loud and clear, their journalists based in Qatar need to be constantly on their guard when reporting on local issues. On top of all this, Al Jazeera has been censored in the US, an act which deserves a slow hand clap.

Then there has been outrage expressed over the jailed journalists by expats in the Middle East. But a quick look at the today's homepages for newspapers in Qatar's neighbours in the UAE, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Bahrain reveals that none of these countries, all of which have heavily state-controlled media, are keen to make a song and dance about Egypt shitting all over press freedom today. It might give people in those countries ideas and all four governments are terrified of any dissent. All four countries have imprisoned journalists and bloggers. In the UAE, when bloggers went on trial, the ban on freedom of assembly was conveniently ignored by the police when a group of stooges gathered outside the court house to show their support for the government.

As such, lead stories on news sites for these countries include such groundbreaking stuff as Ferrari World opening a new ride in a mall, Ramadan working hours announced for the UAE private sector and Bahrainis being urged to commit to national unity, Interestingly,  the most hard-hitting lead today is from the Kuwait Times, with a call for action over an anti-Shi'ite article in light of horrific events in Iraq but there is nothing on today's news out of Egypt. The Saudi Gazette, meanwhile, leads with a two-steps-forward-one-step-back story on gender equality with a ban on visas for male tailors who make women's clothing and an unintentionally ironic story about the second Saudi woman to qualify as a pilot - except she won't be able to drive herself to the airport... But nowt on Egypt imprisoning journalists.

Who has the cojones to call out these newspapers on their ongoing commitment to peddling a government-approved line?

A terrible, terrible thing has happened in Egypt today. But as well as demanding the immediate and unconditional release of the three Al Jazeera journalists, we all need to be vigilant about calling out the assorted bullfuckery that goes on in the media we consume on a daily basis.

Nobody's backyard is full of roses.



Image by Dawn Hudson.

Censorship, censorship everywhere and not a chance to think...

You think you can say what you like? Think again. This blog has been routinely blocked by O2 and EE using stupid internet filters that treat adult consumers like children. O2 regularly makes Barry Butler, a freelance ESOL teacher from the Midlands, jump through absurd hoops every time he tries to read this blog and finds it has been blocked. 

EE has also been guilty of preventing adult customers from accessing this blog - this is especially ridiculous given that EE sponsored the BAFTA awards the other week. Let me see if I understand. We have a phone company that has prevented adults from accessing the internet in its entirety putting its name to a celebration of the British film industry. That would be an industry which over the years has given the world some of the most brilliant, subversive and controversial contributions to the cultural landscape. 

Corporations are already doing the work of the government whose plans for internet filtering are anti-free speech in the extreme. There is an alarming dearth of opposition to these plans in the House of Commons or the House of Lords. If that doesn't strike you as the start of an ominous future of restricted speech and expression, we need to sit down and have a little chat.

And then we have the mob mentality which seeks to silence anything offensive. Personally, I think Katie Hopkins is an attention-seeking professional troll. I don't tune in when she is on TV, I don't follow her on Twitter, I simply cannot be bothered with her nonsense. But she has every right to spout whatever it is that she says. The same goes for lads' mags, Frankie Boyle, Seth McFarlane, Sarah Silverman and anyone or anything else that people have sought to ban.

Campaigning website change.org wasted bandwidth with an e-petition to remove Katie Hopkins from ITV and Channel 5 after she she tweeted something tasteless after the helicopter crash in Scotland late last year. And, by jingo, it worked! Hopkins was indeed dropped from ITV's This Morning programme. Seriously, it is far saner to just not watch her if you don't like her. Frankly, I'd be happy if Keith Lemon, Citizen Khan, Mrs Brown's Boys or Chris Lilley never appeared on TV again because they're all about as funny as burning orphans but starting up an e-petition is childish and misses the point. 

Once you seek to ban something just because you don't like it, there is no reason why something you do like cannot be banned too.

We also have problematic discussions when it comes to banning hate speech. The thing is we don't actually need any more laws on hate speech. The UK already has laws against verbal abuse as well as physical abuse. If you yell something awful at someone and it causes distress or upset, you have broken the law and the judge will have to consider the hate speech aspect of it when sentencing. Similarly, if someone is beaten up for whatever reason, this is against the law and the judge again has to take into account whether there is any hateful motivation, such as racism or homophobia, when passing sentence. The impact of such abuse should be pretty obvious - I don't want to live in a society where it is acceptable to beat someone up for any reason - and in the case of assaults, either verbal or physical, that are motivated by hate, education is just as important as harsh sentences.

But this does not mean someone should not be allowed to speak out against issues such as same sex marriage or further immigration. I may find the views of someone opposed to marriage equality or immigration from certain nations absurd, illogical, unconstructive, unpleasant or just plain moronic - but if their views are silenced as "hate speech" there is nothing to stop other opinions also being shut down. If you start cutting down the right to express opinions, even ones with which you violently disagree, you automatically restrict your right to refute it.

And then there are more insidious ways that we are censored. 

The "gagging law" passed through Parliament, albeit with a few minor amendments and there was no mass outrage because, basically, people didn't take the time to understand it or think about how it might affect them. It imposes ridiculous requirements on lobbying groups (but not corporations...) in the run-up to elections and is essentially aimed at silencing groups such as trade unions and the implications go beyond silencing some rowdy unionists. Hint: If a law is opposed by various groups across the political spectrum, groups who typically disagree with each other, it's probably a bad law. The bureaucracy that will be involved in monitoring the membership lists and campaign spending of lobby groups flies in the face of government claims that they are all about spending less public money and being a libertarian party of small government. 

And just today I was tweeting in my other guise at the @Save_St_Helier account, whereby I am part of a campaign to try and retain vital services at my local hospital, such as A&E, maternity, renal and kids' intensive care. A few of us asked faceless bureaucrats in the Twitterverse for some transparency in relation to a process which has so far cost taxpayers £8.2 million. How the hell was a review of local healthcare services costing us so much money? 

We finally found out that £1.874 million of our money was paid to 2020 Delivery, one of those vague consultancies whereby a peruse of their website leaves you none the wiser about what they actually do. All we were told by the bureaucrats was that the £1.874 million was spent on "finance and activity monitoring and travel and transport analysis". But we can't really find out a whole lot more because Freedom of Information legislation does not apply to private companies, only public bodies. It's just another way to stop the free flow of information, to drive people who are using their freedom to publicly ask questions into a brick wall and to keep us passive and quiet.

I'm exhausted. I apologise for this blog post rambling all over the place but once you start looking at the ways in which we are censored, the ways in which the flow of information is restricted, the ways in which we seek to ban that which we dislike without thinking through the consequences, you soon discover a multi-headed hydra of anti-freedom bullshit has grown before your very eyes. Now, who wants to help me slay the hydra? It's a big job but it's one of the most important jobs we will ever do.   

Image: "Resurrection de la Censure", JJ Grandville

G4S, BBC, police: All in it together?

So far, this is what we know about a BBC staff being prevented* from working on a balcony at the Conservative Party Conference in Manchester yesterday...

1. There was a large protest about NHS cuts and privatisation - 50,000 people marching on the CPC - in Manchester.

2. It was a peaceful protest. Only two arrests were made.

3. BBC political correspondent Norman Smith did not film live coverage of the NHS demonstration from a balcony at the CPC venue.

4. According to Norman Smith's Twitter feed (@BBCNormanS), security staff had been told by police not to allow the BBC access to a balcony overlooking the protest, but no reason was given for this ban.

5. On the Greater Manchester Police Twitter feed (@gmpolice), it has been denied that police prevented the BBC from filming.

6. Whoever manages the police Twitter account did say that people were "prevented from entering plaza area outside venue reducing potential tensions between protestors & delegates".

Firstly, the balcony in question is private property in that it is part of the venue where the CPC is currently being held. But to say the CPC is a private event is a little absurd. A BBC reporter wanting to film here is not the same as demanding to film, say, a wedding at the same venue.

The CPC has been getting wall-to-wall coverage on the BBC Parliament TV channel, as did the Labour and Lib-Dem conferences. It is important in an open, functioning democracy that BBC, as well as all other news outlets, cover the party conferences. And it is important that people are free to protest at party conferences, regardless of their views. If a party conference is targeted by protestors, that should be covered and every assistance should be given to the media to properly cover it. If a balcony is a good vantage point for getting live footage of a protest, that should be made accessible to the media just as the CPC is open to cameras and reporters.

The NHS protest as well as the events of the conference are inextricably linked and need to be properly covered. Even if you would happily see the NHS disbanded tomorrow, it cannot be denied that 50,000 NHS-supporting people giving up part of their weekend to protest the party conference at which the Prime Minister and Health Secretary were both present is not newsworthy.

Norman Smith's Twitter feed raises more questions than it answers.

He tweeted: Also to be clear. I was stopped by security staff who said they had been told by police not to allow access. No reason was given #cpc13 

Smith doesn't elaborate as to whether he challenged security staff. Nor does he say if he contacted Greater Manchester Police to ask why filming from the balcony was not permitted. All we have from the police is a tweet about other people being denied entry to other areas reduce "potential tensions between protestors and delegates".

Can anyone from the security company (G4S, by the way... Remember them? The company that did such an appalling job of London Olympic security that the army had to be called in...) or Greater Manchester Police elaborate as to what danger could have been caused by allowing filming to take place from a balcony? After all, a balcony would offer a safe, aerial shot of the protest. A bulky TV camera wouldn't be getting in the way of protestors from a balcony, would it? If filming took place from this particular vantage point, BBC staff would not be getting in the way of the police officers patrolling the protest either.

All in all, it sounds like it was a good place to film live events without obstructing either protestors trying to get a message across or police officers trying to do their jobs.

So, here are the questions that the public deserves to have answered. Our taxes pay for the police force and the BBC so accountability is crucial.

1. If nobody's personal safety was going to be compromised by BBC staff working from a balcony, what exactly was the problem?

2. Was there a problem with the BBC running live footage of the protest? Is it the live aspect of filming an event as unpredictable as a protest that caused consternation?

3. Was anyone from the Conservative Party passing on directives about how BBC journalists should do their jobs to members of the police force who then passed these directives on to a private security company?

4. Did the police force and G4S in their combined actions yesterday cross a line from simply ensuring people stayed safe to dictating how a media outlet does its job?

5. How strongly did Norman Smith protest when disallowed access to the balcony?

6. If Norman Smith proceeded to the balcony and carried on filming regardless, would he have risked being arrested?

I know I am not alone in wanting these questions answered. And if you still think this is a storm in a teacup, just remember how many important stories have been broken precisely because journalists showed some backbone and didn't bend to petty rules. A media populated by obedient people is not a media worth having.


* "Prevented" as far as we know from the journalist's Twitter feed. If he wasn't prevented from filming from the balcony, it is reasonable to gather that he would have filmed from the balcony and there would not be any questions that need to be answered about police and G4S interfering with journalists doing their jobs properly. 





   

Fannying about in Sydney

Honi Soit is the newspaper produced by University of Sydney students for University of Sydney students. But the latest cover, reproduced here in all its uncensored glory, has been recalled after a farce that proved exactly why such a cover image is important.

While Honi Soit is pretty hard to come by outside of Sydney University, the Student Representative Council feared that such a cover may break Australian media laws. They would be the same media laws that led to the now-defunct Australian edition of FHM requiring a very busy band of re-touch artists to ensure that errant pubes or vulva outlines were eradicated from covers and inside pages back when I worked there. I recall seeing an advance copy of a mag and marvelling at a model's crotch - her white bikini was indecently damp and the result was a smoothed-out PhotoShop vulva. It looked like she was wearing a crash helmet down there.

Fear turned to farce for Honi Soit when black bars were placed over the visible labia and clitoris. Except the bars weren't entirely opaque and the SRC absurdly called for all copies to be removed from the stands, returned to the Honi Soit office and locked up.

Good grief. Student newspapers exist to challenge the status quo, to take risks, to give voice to opinions that will often be sadly silenced when students graduate and find themselves in the self-censoring corporate world. Honi Soit editor, Hannah Ryan, was not afraid of breaking the law but the SRC panicked. Inevitably, the uncensored cover has been shared far and wide thanks to the internet making a joke of Australian media laws. It is probably the most widely viewed Honi Soit cover in the newspaper's long history.

According to the Sydney Morning Herald, the university's vice-chancellor Dr Michael Spence "defended the paper's editorial freedom but criticised the cover."

He said: "Personally my view is the cover is demeaning to women but I do realise I'm not the target audience for Honi Soit. However, the student body at the University of Sydney has a long and proud tradition of independence and it's a tradition we will continue to uphold."

Er, so he didn't really defend any freedoms at all then. The 18 women involved in the cover all posed willingly and it was created with the support of the university's Women's Collective. It was shot in the university's Women's Room. These women are not ashamed and nor should they be. But thank you, Dr Spence, for telling us these women have demeaned themselves and all women. Where would we all be without this man to tell us what to think?

On the upside, thanks to the power of the internet, a selection of real women's vulvas have been shared globally. If this means that even one young man or teenage boy learns that not every woman has a denuded symmetrical crotch that looks like a plastic taco shell, that is a good thing.  No, I am not a mother. Yes, I would happily let any future teenage son of mine see the Honi Soit cover. What are you going to do, Moral Panic Merchants? Call Social Services in advance lest I end up being a bad mother sometime in about 2030?

Fear of pubes is nothing new, despite what anti-porn campaigners might think. We have a worldwide archive of centuries of art where pubic hair has been diligently eliminated and the pudenda is always neat and tucked away.

A sense of shame, fear and revulsion surrounding real female bodies is nothing new. This, in turn, breeds some awful attitudes towards women's bodies by men and distressingly negative attitudes in women about themselves. The ongoing existence of ridiculous media laws and the resulting panic, such as that exhibited by the SRC, demonstrates exactly why we need to see more images that challenge our collective fear and prudery, not less.

 

Click here to read the blog post from Lily Patchett, one of the 18 women who featured on the cover.

Image courtesy of Honi Soit

The latest news from Nuts magazine

Just as I was writing yesterday's blog post on Marmite madness, this press release below came in from Nuts magazine. I am not usually in the habit of publishing press releases verbatim but this explains nicely why it is absurd for the Co-op to demand modesty bags on a legally available magazine.

Paul Williams also makes the point that for the last few weeks, "more conservative covers" have been tested and the readers have responded well with increased sales. Of course, a "more conservative" cover for Nuts will still upset assorted pearl-clutchers but it is an example of a brand listening to its target market rather than a group of people who never have and never will buy the magazine.

Is this in any way a reaction to the "Lose The Lads' Mags" campaign? Maybe, but it is also an example of paying attention to market forces as well. While lads' mags sales in general have been declining, perhaps this latest move from Nuts will be the start of a resurgence. That'll cause a collective head explosion over at UK Feminista. After all, whenever you draw attention to something you don't like, you are giving it the oxygen of publicity.

I cannot imagine Kat Banyard will be rushing out to congratulate Nuts on more modest covers but I suspect she will not rest until such magazines are banned entirely.

Without further ado, here is the Nuts magazine press release:

NUTS WILL NOT BE MODESTY BAGGED AT RETAIL

Nuts magazine today (8th August) announces that it will not modesty bag the magazine at retail and as a result - according to the Co-op’s ultimatum – will be delisted from their stores from September. Nuts considers the Co-op’s ultimatum to be an unreasonable attempt to prevent shoppers from freely browsing a legal magazine that is already displayed according to Home Office guidelines.

Paul Williams, managing director, IPC Inspire (which publishes Nuts), says: “Co-op’s knee-jerk attempt to restrict access to a product that consumers have enjoyed for nearly a decade is wrong.  Nuts takes its obligation to craft products that are right for consumers and retailers alike very seriously and for a number of weeks now we have had new covers in place, which have a more conservative tone. We are delighted with our readers’ response to the new covers and last week’s issue was our biggest selling since February.

“The objection that niche lobby groups have against certain sectors of the media should not mean that the right to purchase a perfectly legal product is restricted for the over half a million Nuts readers. As has been widely reported in the media in recent weeks, this is no longer a question of whether or not you like men’s magazines, it is a question of how far you can restrict the public’s ability to consume free and legal media before it becomes censorship.”

Nuts magazine is read and enjoyed by more than half a million UK adults; its readership includes both men and women, according to the National Readership Survey (NRS). The men’s magazine market is worth £12.7m per year to UK retailers. The content and covers of Nuts are perfectly legal.

IPC Media, which publishes Nuts and is the UK’s largest magazine publisher, supports the responsible display of all men’s magazines – there is a set of display guidelines, created by the industry through the Professional Publishers Association (PPA), and endorsed by the Home Office and recommended by the Bailey Review. These guidelines - which have been supplied to all retailers - include the use of modesty boards, if a retailer deems them appropriate for its customers.